Could you folks please do me a favor ?

If I ever start posting about UCD baseball again could you remind me I asked you to tell me not to do that ? That would be greatly appreciated.

It's taken me too many years to admit that as the program continues at the D-I level the games are little more than exhibitions for parents to cheer for their children's accomplishments (and spend the rest of the time socializing) and baseball used-to-be's (or maybe never were's) to drop names. Also for silly co-eds to get tanned and talk to each other about how great they are.

The players, coaches, and the few actual fans (and I mean very few) are the only ones who actually care about the game results and are doing all they can. Having school pride means you show up to see your team beat the snot out of the other school; it's not a hippie love-fest..take that crap to San Francisco. If they lose you have the right to be mad (within reason) and let the officials how poorly they are doing. Why should the officials be beyond criticism ? Any other job if you do poorly you hear about it.

However, the one entity that's absolutely supposed to care about the team-the university- couldn't care less. They don't promote it and they don't give it the financial support it needs. There wouldn't even be a Dobbins Stsdium if the players, coaches, snd community hadn't stepped up in a huge way and did the work themselves. The university, if left to it's own devices, would probably have been content to let them play at a field with a dirty old backstop and some cruddy old bleachers, like a certain Causeway rival did prior to 2003 It seems UCD is just biding its time, waiting for financial commitments to expire and the team is so bad they can cut the program with minimal objections.
Say what you want about Vaughn's coaching but he may have been set up to fail, and that's mighty tough to overcome.

So I have to wonder-if the university doesn't support the team, is there any merit in me continuing to come to games and devoting energy to follow the season ? After about 25 years of going to games (several of which were during the successful D-II years) is the message I've been missing that this is not a place for real fans, just a private club for "rental fans" to watch their kids play ? During the D-II years I'd say no but now... I think it is, just like pretty much any women's sport other than basketball. Seems to me ever since the move to D-I athletics has gotten a giant stick wedged in its crack trying to come off as cool to older members, hence the increased proliferation of polo-shirted employees whose functions are not readily evident. Are you all going to the country club for a round of golf after the game-what is that ?

Message received. I'll step away. God forbid a person who attends as much as I do would be recognized and made to feel welcome by some other attendees and game staff but all I get are rental fans staring at me like I'm sort of leper and ditzy yappy co-eds who apparently have never heard of respecting the personal space (especially during COVID-19) of strangers. I mean, in these times it makes sense especially for 30 lb blonde women to stay away from strangers.

And I'm p.o at Sac State for a different reason so next year I'll just be watching college teams I don't care about duke it out.

And before I leave baseball completely a couple of things:

I don't think any Cal Poly fans will agree with this but I thought their baseball team exhibited a bit of poor sportsmanship in this series. When they would score a run they wouldn't just cheer-they'd bunch up, bounce around, and shout in unison. That's excessive celebration, and it's disrespectful. This is not that much bettee than that choreographed bowling pin routine Prince Fielder's team used to pull. Celebrating like that for scoring a run against a last-place team is overkill...it's just kicking them when they're down. Save that crap for Hawaii...I'm almost motivated to go to SLO next weekend so I can root for Hawaii to send the Mustangs to the glue factory..and I detest U of H. But that would be wasted time and money to travel out of spite..not like they'd care even. If I were Brett Erwin today I would've "accidentally" plunked the next batter. Cal Poly has a veteran coach...he shouldn't be allowing that crap.

And on a lighter note, have you noticed that every baseball team has a few players who go from being baby-faced and clean-shaven as freshman to more closely resembling homeless drifters by the time they're seniors, but then they clean up for Senior Day ? It's like they aged 20 years in 4. You don't see this in basketball so much. Maybe Coach Les doesn't allow unruly appearances ?

They had the usual ceremonies where the families and friends of the players were mentioned. Two of the players had girlfriends with the same name. Glad to see they were two different women. Imagine what a scene it would be if 1 woman had been dating both guys in secret.

They also recognized players they couldn't recognize the prior season who were no longer on the team. Conspicuously not mentioned were Logan Denholm and Alejandro Lara. I don't know what Lara is up to. Know he had a battle with cancer but had recovered per Davis Enterprise article. Hopefully he's ok. Denholm still has some games to play for Sac State (maybe) in the playoffs, but he still graduated from UCD.